Metals USA just stuck LTV with $5,000,000 in bad debt as they just declared bacruptcy. What is happening to the steel industry can and will and is happening to an industry near you. And it will continue to worsen. But until, the countless less meaningful jobs in the service sector(read luxuries for lazy Americans)begin to disappear and the once affordable junk from Target and Walmart becomes out of reach to the many, only then will the annointed policy makers from D.C. realize that the deflationary spiral we are in is really a black hole. And nothing escapes the black hole, not cheap money, cheap imports, cheap fuel or greed. Gordon Gecko was wrong! Greed is not good.
not necessarily, steel has had 3 problems for decades --
a) overpaid union thugs
b) government over-regulation (cheered on by the union thugs and the demorats they support, until it bit them in the butt)
c) foreign steel subsidies
to which i say, good riddance to more overpaid union jobs, deregulate, and as long as foreign governments want to throw money at us via subsidies, let them, they'll get tired of it eventually
countless less meaningful jobs in the service sector(read luxuries for lazy Americans)begin to disappear
this is an inaccurate description of the "service sector", and you can't, just as willie green tried and couldn't on other threads, dispute the constantly rising standard of living over the last 30 years across all income levels while manufacturing jobs were steadily disappearing
will the annointed policy makers from D.C. realize that the deflationary spiral we are in is really a black hole. And nothing escapes the black hole, not cheap money, cheap imports, cheap fuel
a correct statement, deflation is here even though few are aware of it, and it ain't going away anytime soon
however, deflation isn't caused by "greed" or the steel industy's problems
Gordon Gecko was wrong! Greed is not good
"greed" is good, without everyone pursuing their self-interest, you have no economic efficiency at all, and you wind up with a soviet-style economy that serves nobody well
i agree that many industries are going to have very serious problems for many different reasons, primarily the general slowdown that is likely to get much worse, but not the same ones that plague steel
which will likely to lead to a decade of falling standards of living across the board, but again not because of the loss of steel or any other manufacturing jobs
at this point, we are better off with fewer manufacturing jobs, manufacturing is always hit early and hard in any recession, and has now seen 13 consecutive months of declining output
with 1970s levels of manufacturing here, we would already have been in an official recession for 3 or 4 quarters, instead of being in the middle of quarter number 2
U.S. Export-Import Bank Wants to Invest in Foreign Steel Production
LTV is slime. They poured money like water of losing projects after getting concessions from everyone and now they are paying the price. Darwinian rules. This has nothing to do with offshore competition and everything to do with plain corporate stupidity.
The worst enemy of integrated steel is competition.
The automakers were late in seeing the light, but adapted and became profitable again. The integrated steelmakers finally acknowledged that changes had to be made, but their half-hearted attempts to adapt led them not out of the red, but into bankruptcy.